The Tombs of Asciiroth Version 0.7.
© 2009 Alx Dark

The Tombs of Asciiroth and the map editor are provided under the Apache 2.0 license. See the Asciiroth Home Page for further information.

The icons used in the editor are mostly from the Silk Icons set, licensed under an Creative Commons Attribute 2.5 License. Others are from software released by the Eclipse Foundation under the Eclipse Public License.


The Guide to Creating Asciiroth Maps provides extensive details on how to create the piece strings you must create in the editor. This document describes the editor itself, and the options available in the upper-right hand corner of the editor.

Main Areas of the Editor

Brush Options
This area tells you the X/Y location of the cursor over the map, and provides a place to change the size of your "brush" to paint larger areas of the board.
Piece Library
This is a complete list of the piece types (terrain, agents and items) that are available for making maps. When you select one of these types, it will be added to the instance editor underneath the board. Except for simple pieces, this new piece instance isn't going to have enough information to be a valid piece on the board.
Instance Editor
The area under the board lists all the specific game piece instances that are available or being used on the board. Typically you must fill out a newly added "piece key" to complete it: you must specify its color, orientation, on/off state and the like. When the piece key is valid, the little red ball Invalid Piece will turn into a little green ball Invalid Piece. You can then select that piece and "paint" one or more squares on the board with it.
Board Area
The main area is the board. You basically paint the cells until you have the map you desire. One thing to note is that if you shift-click on a cell, you'll get an editor for that cell that can be used to remove a specific piece there, or to set the player's start location at that cell (more is coming).

Editor Toolbar

There are nine buttons on the editor's toolbar.

Adjacent Board Navigation
Opens a panel that allows you to quickly load an adjacent board (including boards above and below the current board). This is a little easier than using "Open Board" to navigate back and form between boards.
Board Metadata Editor
Opens an editor for the board's metadata (inside/outside, adjacent maps, etc).
New Board
Starts a new board. Will prompt you to save an existing board first.
Open Board
Open an existing board (opens file dialog).
Save Board
Save board (will prompt for file name if not previously saved).
Save Board As
Save current board under a new name.
Preview Board (Test Play)
Save and then open this board so you can play test it. In order for this to work, you must set a startX and startY value in the board's metadata. This is just a start position for the player, it will have no effect on the game unless this board is the entrance board for the scenario, in which case this is where the player will be started. Similarly, you can equip the player with a start inventory, and for test purposes, the player will be created with those items (this is helpful whenever you are trying to test a puzzle that requires items from another board).
Create Board Name
This simply makes up a word that you can use as the name of a board... it's tedious to make up board names.
Help
Opens the help dialog.

Cell Editing

In order to inspect the exact contents of a cell, shift-click on the cell to bring up a cell editor. The editor will allow you add and remove multiple items from the cell, start the player on that cell, or select any piece on the cell as the selected piece for your brush.

Using the Mouse

Right-clicking on a cell will select the terrain on that cell as the terrain to use when painting.